


Acclimatized Universe

by Unicoranglais



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokeumans
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Animal Transformation, Pokemon Transformation, TF, Transformation, pokemon tf, sci fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 12:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicoranglais/pseuds/Unicoranglais
Summary: In the year 2042, people play all kinds of games with Pokemon spirits fighting at their sides. You never know who might challenge you next, or what you might end up betting. But when Tyler accidentally becomes his own Pokemon, all hell breaks loose at the gaming academy he's been sent to! (AU.)





	1. Another Normal, Lousy Day

_**A/N:** Welcome to Acclimatised Universe, a large scale Pokeumans work with both literature and art! The version of this story with art can be viewed [on my deviantart account.](https://www.deviantart.com/notanexistingusermom/art/Acclimatised-Universe-A-Pokeumans-AU-Part-One-793042892) You can find other Pokeumans stories at [the Pokeumans group on dA](https://www.deviantart.com/pokeumans), and we'd love to see you there. I lead the group, so feel free to ask me anything._

_When reading, please remember that this story is a Pokeumans AU and so there are some differences between it and your normal Pokeumans story. If you are new to Pokeumans, don't worry - this story is stand-alone. Things will be explained!_

_Edit 15/4/2019 - If you are going to review this, then please know that aaaaall the deviations this story takes from the games are coming from the fact this is not a Pokemon story, really. It's Pokeumans first, and it has to abide by the rules of that 'verse._

_With that explained..._

* * *

 

The last normal morning Tyler had went something like this.

He woke up from a dream that meant nothing in particular, and lay in bed 'til ten simply because he could. His parents were messing around in the kitchen downstairs – breakfast had likely come and gone – and as it was a Saturday, the sounds of the big game were already starting up. Rugby, most likely. Tyler had never been a fan of the big holograms running around the house kicking a translucent ball, but his dad loved it, and what his dad said went when it came to what the family got to watch as entertainment. At least it wasn't one of those horror simulations with all the jumpscares tracked to your eye motions, Tyler had yet to meet anyone who had made it through one of those alive.

With a yawn, Tyler let his gaze trail around the room, which was mostly shades of firetruck red, because that happened to be his favourite colour and he wasn't about to let anyone tell him otherwise. It used to be an attic, and his prized poster collection was plastered across the low, strangely angled ceiling, with at least twenty different awesome players glaring down at him. (Tyler chose to take the glaring as very encouraging, rather than lowkey terrifying.) In the highest corner stood his trophy cabinet, from when spelling bees were something that actually mattered, though the prize of it had to be a small silver medal from that one time he'd almost won a chess match against his neighbour, Piper Lee.

He still thought about her, sometimes. What had happened to her since she'd found her Pokemon spirit guide? Had she gone to a PKU academy, or a PKE one? Tyler heard the PoKemon University was more about learning Pokemon customs and history, whereas those under the Psycho Kinetic Exploration banner got to pursue their dreams of gaming at the top tier relentlessly and use their spirits all the time to help them play. Piper would definitely go with PKE if she was given the chance, he just knew it.

The holoband started vibrating on his bedside table, finally motivating Tyler just enough to sit up in bed, though only because he didn't want it to upset the large pile of posters he'd been meaning to put up for the last week. He'd recently gotten his hands on some signed copies of Leon Rex – a flamboyant armoured fellow whose armour was somewhere between Aslan and Incineroar, a very nice design armour-wise and definitely one of Tyler's favourites as far as the Spirit Warriors team went. A mighty man who fought between worlds and could win any game he and his Pokemon companion put their minds to, that was Leon. His Pokemon was no slouch, either!

Honest! Brave! Mustacheful! Loyal friendship for forever! Actually having friends! Fantastic stuff, but significantly less fantastic on the floor, and the bleating band was threatening to upset the pile. So, Tyler finally picked up the holoband and put it on.

"Hi there, Coolkid 241!" A fluffy creature, about the size of a Pomeranian but a little more cat-like (Tyler did like cats, shame they went extinct with everything else) hopped out of his wrist and landed on the floor, brushing against his legs and yet never touching them at all. "Feed me! Walk me! Keep me happy!" Its fuzzy red cheeks sparked; he'd programmed in a definite resemblance to Pikachu with the yellow and red fur, but couldn't help the cat model the app came with. "You have no calendar appointments today."

"Thanks, Chu." His pet didn't need food or a walk, though it demanded both of course. He'd be impressed with the sincerity of the animal simulator, if it wasn't somewhat annoying at times – Tyler couldn't change the username he'd entered when he was about twelve, for instance, so he was Coolkid 241 forever more. "I can play with you, how about that?" And he pressed the play button on the wristband; the designers presumably thought it was funny, hooking the play command up to a music-play button. Ha, ha, multifunctionality. Ha.

"Feed me!" Chu replied gloomily, but chased after the holographic ball all the same, phasing through his bedroom wall. Tyler felt a slight pang of guilt for some reason, watching that, and almost wondered if he should name it, before he gave up on that and went back to staring at the ceiling.

Life in the early 2000s must have been boring, huh. They didn't have any of these awesome people-and-Pokemon stars. It was just dumb luck that some explosion or something had ripped through the stratosphere and in fact the spirit world, unleashing Pokemon - Pokemon that were somehow connected to particular humans. Like, there was a cool heritage thing or something, and honestly Tyler didn't understand most of it, because he didn't go to an academy… but it had to be pretty awesome. Hell, just having a friend would be pretty awesome. Tyler seemed to be drawn to people who were good at games, and those kinds of people almost invariably ended up collapsing and being pronounced as having found their partner, and then of course rushed off to one of the two big academies.

He'd held Piper's hand until the last minute, and almost felt bad about it.

PKU or PKE? What would he pick? They seemed to have similar goals, they both taught people, and yet they seemed to really compete. Tyler had been to one of the local tournaments, and it was pretty savage, even if nobody had played the money-and-a-knife game. Hell, maybe it was even more savage than that! He gripped the covers, recalling the gory sight as vividly as he dared. The Feraligatr-spirit had simply taken the other guy and smashed him right into a wall. What if Piper someday-

"You have no calendar appointments today. Walk me! Feed me! Keep me happy!"

Same shit, different order. Chu needed an upgrade, but he couldn't afford the latest app yet. Tyler shuddered, tried to ignore the cold sweat, and pressed play again. This time, the holographic ball pretended to bounce off the walls, and the little pet charged up the walls, across the ceiling, all over the place. It even barked a few times, like a real dog, trying to distract Tyler. And when that didn't work, it sat on his lap. "Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated."

"Gee, thanks", Tyler muttered, though he could barely speak; it felt like his throat was closing up already, and his hands were trembling, and good golly he'd deteriorated fast. With a very shaky effort, he reached for the pill bottle on the bedside table. The holographer wristband had a cylinder full of quetiapine and a long needle, but Tyler did prefer the oral dose so long as he could actually take it.

Aaaand he dropped it. "Shit!"

"Swearing detected. Please refrain from swearing as it will raise your blood pressure. Your parents have been notified." And a split second later, a sharp jab in his wrist; the band was doing its work, as much as he disliked aforementioned work.

Tyler just put his head in his hands in response, and tried to stay still. Panic attacks had been coming to him more and more frequently lately, probably because he had more and more disappearing friends to think about, to the point where the stupid therapy pet app had been installed on his holoband.

"It's going to be okay."

Well, that just made his blood boil! Ray. Jordan. And Piper, all of them gone. And all those kids he'd known back in primary school. Anyone who was a gamer, at all  _relatable_ \- "Why can't I go?"

Dammit, his parents would have heard that. He hadn't meant to say that. But the drugs worked quickly; he was floating away. It was becoming difficult to care about this, or that, or anything at all.

"Because you do not have a spirit", the pet replied. "I'm here to help."

Tyler would normally have pointed out that was a terrible choice of stock phrase, but he couldn't quite care about that either.

"Another panic attack! That's it. I'm making an appointment with Dr. Gravey  _now._ "

There was no stopping Tyler's mother once she was on the warpath – red-heads really could be ferocious, and the not-caring bit of the drugs hadn't quite worn off yet, so Tyler just slumped over at the kitchen table while she jabbed at a numbered holographic pad. "Dr. Gravey… Dr. Gravey…"

That was their local psychiatrist. Tyler had been desperate not to see him, of course. Seeing a specialist for an anxiety disorder was, to him, as good as admitting you had a serious problem with  _worrying_ , and that was like saying you were medically, scientifically, a complete coward. He'd never get to go to an academy like that.

Maybe he should run away. He almost considered it, but he wasn't properly dressed yet, so running away would be a terrible idea. And if he tried to get dressed now, his parents would likely be watching what he was up to, so he wouldn't be able to take anything useful with him, so he wouldn't survive at all. Stupid idea. His heart was banging in his chest at the mere thought of, say, going outside without his gas mask.

"Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated."

The voice came from under the table, where the pet was currently doing some sort of weird in-between-the-legs licking stuff. Realism taken too far, most likely. Tyler scowled in its general direction, and his mother looked positively thunderous. "See? You definitely have some sort of anxiety. You are  _going_ , whether you like it or not."

"Going?"

She blinked, like she'd said something that at some point was doable, but not anymore. Little wonder – before she'd had Tyler, he was pretty sure she'd held a license, like most people in her generation. Maybe she'd simply assumed they were going to spent thirty or forty minutes driving some sort of  _car_  into the city to see someone.

But why bother with that when with a quick call and a few minutes wait, the good doctor himself could be sitting in their dining room?

"Tyler!" the shrink shouted. He had a lot of weight on him, which was probably why he only did calls, and he was still wearing a jogging suit. He had to be rich, someone from a place with clean air and space to run. Lucky bastard, though he likely didn't take advantage of it much. Despite the athletic garb, Tyler had to wonder if he  _ever_  moved from the armchair, since on closer inspection… yep, it had wheels. Motorised. "I've heard you're not feeling so good today?"

The words cut through his inspection, and they hurt about as much as that implied. Yeah, but… I-I'll be fine." Said as if he wasn't still in his pajamas and holding his head. Bloody medication.

"Nonsense, your vitals definitely show signs of anxiety." Dr. Gravey nodded, all stern and solemn and a little bit wobbly as he pulled out a tablet and pen to write everything down. A rugby player charged through his sizeable midriff, followed by a ball, and Tyler's mom headed to the loungeroom to yell at his dad about it. Something about that behaviour being inappropriate with a visitor here.

"And what's this, a history… You've been having panic attacks weekly for the last four years? Tell me, what do you think caused the first one?"

"D-Don't diagnose me. It'll ruin my life." Tyler clenched a fist, in part out of frustration and in part because he was bracing for the needle. Surely Dr. Gravey was going to diagnose him, and surely he was going to be sedated for it! And he only had four cylinders in his wristband. Two to go, then a costly replacement. "I won't be considered for any decent jobs if people know I've got a stupid  _anxiety_. I'll never get to go to an academy!"

The doctor leaned forwards, round chin in round hand. The chair creaked. "If you want to avoid getting a label, you're going to need to tell me what happened the first time you felt like this. April fourth, 2038. Four years ago is the first one your holoband recorded, correct?"

Tyler swallowed. Stared at the floor. "Fine, so I had this friend at school. Ray Lawley."

"You were close?"

"Yeah, very. We played a lot of… games and stuff together. Sports. He liked sports. Basketball was his favourite. I think he even played it outside once, for a school championship. In a real court." It was hard to talk about the guy, really, after all the forgetting he'd tried to do. Eyes as green as his own, like broken bottle glass smoothed by the sea. Ray had always joked that they were like brothers, because they both had green eyes and used too much gel in their dark hair. Ray was the older one, though, so twice little Tyler's height and blessed with long arms that could seemingly reach anything he wanted. He could reach the basketball hoop, if he jumped.

At least the doctor seemed to pick up on Tyler's general need to move on and away from Ray, or at least he got straight to the point with it. "And something happened to him?"

"Yeah, he collapsed. We were just playing, and he… It was a spirit. One had found him." If he wasn't already a bit sedated from earlier, Tyler would surely be in tears by this point. Even just thinking about Ray with his too-beautiful eyes rolled back in his head made him want to throw up. And now he felt like throwing up! Great!

"Your heart rate appears to have sped up, Coolkid241. Trembling has been detected. Therapy mode activated." The holographic pet climbed up onto Tyler's lap, and it was all he could do not to instinctively try to pet it. Chu was pretty cute, after all.

_Please ignore it. Please ignore it._

Thankfully, Dr. Gravey did. "And you usually feel anxious when you think about the spirits?"

"N-no. Just… people collapsing. Losing friends."

The doctor nodded at that. Wrote something down.  _Please, let that not be a label._ "Does it feel like everyone you make friends with ends up collapsing and getting a spirit?"

What a weirdly specific question. "Uh… yeah? It feels… a lot like that. Like I just have a knack for making friends with… for…" The doctor was smiling. Ah, that couldn't be good. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing wrong. I'm just pleased my hunch with you was right." He coughed, as though slightly embarrassed by his own display of ego there. "Could you tell me about another time you've had this panic? Something more recent…"

What a weird doctor, unless it was normal for them to be so pleased with themselves. It actually looked like Dr. Gravey had puffed up several inches, which was a bit disconcerting. "Right. W-well, there was I guess… Jordan?"

Tyler regretted saying that as soon as he did, but he'd committed to at least thinking about Jordan, and so he did. Not so much a friend as a competitor, and yet the smaller guy had always seemed to treat Tyler with respect, even as Jordan thrashed him in the trading card game of the month.  _That was a great game! I enjoyed playing that! You almost had me there!_

There was something about Jordan that was so delicate, and Tyler had felt a horrible lurch when he first saw Jordan, well,  _being straight_. Like even though they'd never been a thing, they'd been more than that. Like beautiful things with big adorable eyes needed to be protected from weird girls who liked Naruto. Nobody  _liked_  that old anime stuff these days! It was 2042, for crying out loud-

"And Jordan was a friend, too?"

"No!" Tyler said, then remembered to lower his voice. "I mean… no. He was this little genius – I mean, he was really short – and he was really good at card games. I competed with him a lot, until this time when I… actually made finals… and…"

"He collapsed."

Tyler nodded, and they sat in silence for a while. He tried his best not to cry, and the doctor wrote a few more notes before he spoke again.

"Well, you'll have to be tested, but it seems to me that your own spirit's been trying to contact you! And your body is just panicking every time it tries. Spirits often make attempts to connect in the presence of other spirits." Dr. Gravey lifted his tablet again, if only because Tyler was refusing all eye contact by this point. He was too surprised to do anything besides think, really.

"Did you have a choice of academy?"

Where Piper would have gone. He needed to go there-

"Academy?!" And his mother came storming back in, this time with his dad in tow. The doctor somehow managed to look happy about this, maybe because he was right, or at least thought he was (and to be fair, Tyler desperately hoped he was). " _What_  academy?"


	2. The Violent Vegan

The doctor beamed. "Maria, Stan! It's a pleasure to meet you."

She certainly didn't look pleased about it; Tyler's dad simply adjusted his glasses and seemed to be trying to blend in with the nearest convenient corner. The good doctor blathered on anyway. "Your son's 'panic attacks' are almost certainly a result of a spirit trying to make contact. I think you'll find an academy would help him to control it."

"We'll see about that", she replied, and turned the hologram off. That was the thing about holograms – if you didn't like what you were hearing, you could simply opt out of it all. The room would have been silent, if not for the rugby players wandering around and waiting for the ball to pass buy. "Serious discussion time."

"Is it?" Tyler's dad slumped into the closest chair available. He looked tired, as usual; when your business partner was a computer, the resulting pickiness was enough to make anyone exhausted.

"Yes! Very serious discussion time." She glared at him now, not that he seemed to react much. Tyler wished he could have that level of tiredness, sometimes; to simply relax and relax and relax and just not care about anything. "I've  _worked_ for the university."

"In the game design department!" Tyler protested. "You only got to make art, right?! How would you know-"

"PKU is no good for you, and you know it. Now, I like Pokemon as much as the next person, but there's such a thing as too much Pokemon. Like,  _much_ too much. Like that time that pop star dressed up in all the Eeveelutions at once, wasn't that silly?"

"Mooooom…"

Uh-oh, he sounded whiny. Time for her to call backup. "Isn't that right, dear?"

Tyler's dad jumped a bit and adjusted his glasses, because he was definitely not starting to doze off or anything. He was a pale, haggard man, and he likely didn't have time for any of this silliness. "Oh, well, actually, I sort of… always wanted a…" He sighed and shook his head, understanding Maria's glare at last. "I mean, well! If I was doing those cool competitions for a job, being a pro gamer and whatnot, I'd be terrifically, wonderfully- unhappy. I'd be really unhappy. You should be like me, and do business at school. I think?"

"Yes, that's right!" Tyler's mom jumped in. "The PoKemon University's a nasty place where all they'll do is have ridiculous festivals and try to use you for their  _projects_. I know they've got them, and they're no good at all!"

"But, Mom-"

"And all that pagan Pokemon worshipping isn't very nice, right? And they keep going on about how they want to  _become_ Pokemon, some of them! And they want to  _go and live with Pokemon,_ I heard!"

 _How does she even know about that? She was an art designer for their games!_ "But-"

"All that talk about the Great War and the old times and - and the  _genetics_  – no, no, no,  _no._ You can't go to a PKU."

"Okay, fine. So… What about one of the PKE academies?" Tyler rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to contain his excitement as best he could. Dad was on his side here, he just needed to talk his mom around. "I don't think they worship any Pokemon. Please, you know I like games – this could cure the panic or anxiety thing, you know – and I won't be long –  _please?_ " He hesitated, then went on. "Look, I'm going to get better if I go. Really. You don't need to worry."

Tyler's mom passed a hand over her eyes. "I've made a lot of mistakes, you know…"

"Yeah, you shouldn't have sold the garden when you did." Tyler's dad finally entered the conversation without being prodded into it. "Just imagine how much we'd have now."

"I-I more meant leaving my job to look after…"

"Well, did I ever  _say_  you should have…"

Understanding passed between the two of them. Maybe even three, given how bad Tyler felt about it. "Uh, me going isn't going to be a mistake! I'll just get dressed."

The yelling started as soon as he closed the door. Tense, tired people with nothing else to do. An artistic designer who couldn't keep her job with a child to look after, and a man who never did his find his spirit or his dream job. They were both frustrated, and they took it out on each other, like always.

He felt awful, but there was little he could do besides find his nicest shirt. A collar, long sleeves, checks, not so see-through that it would show his thermal underneath. A bit crumpled, but hopefully nobody would notice; people these days wore layers atop layers, to help protect against the acidic outdoors. So did Tyler – two jackets and gloves in a fairly neutral denim, then his scarf and facemask. Even his pants had pants. It all seemed a bit excessive at times, but the last time Tyler had failed to wear all this, his skin had come up in hives for days. He was just sensitive, like that. Finding his earmuffs under the dresser, Tyler straightened up to admire himself. Not that he was vain, but he did like to stare at himself and pretend it was Ray looking back at him.

And then he saw it, watching him in the back of the mirror, right over his shoulder and all that. Big, blue eyes. "Aaaaaieeee!"

They blinked twice at him, then fizzled away into nothing but a hammering heart. Guess his very unmanly noise scared them. Tyler leaned against the mirror, breathing hard, not daring to check behind him. "A-are you gonna get me?!"

"I was thinking about it," his mom answered as she walked in. "I just lodged your admission papers with the doctor. We should start walking."

Something about her voice sounded hollow; broken, maybe. Tyler tried not to think too much about the frustration, the pent up emotions, and what that might mean. She really wouldn't have any company with him gone and his dad working, and yet here she was, collecting up his things. Pills, console, change of clothes, a few Leon Rex posters, holoband charger…

He should help, but he could do was stand there and watch her work for him. The holopet strutted around their ankles, occasionally pointing to things on the floor with a paw and murmuring about a newly scheduled calendar appointment. ( _Hi there, Coolkid 241! You seem to have had a frightening experience. This has been logged under the Experiences file! Would you like to remember this experience?_ )

"Do you think I'll see Piper at the academy?"

Her eyes met his. "Look, I just want to see you happy. If doing this is going to help you, then you should go. I just wish… well, you're not going to one of those awful PoKemon Universities."

"Mom, you never… you didn't exactly work in research for those people. You were just making a game. So how come you  _know_  PKU's so awf-"

"And I hope you never end up playing it, okay? Just promise me you won't."

He'd promised that enough times that all he could do was sigh. She kissed him on the cheek, and hefted a garbage bag of his things. "Let's go. Your dad's decided to try again with those hoverboards."

The streets were already getting dark when they left the house, leaving trails of sparks and smoke behind them. Tyler's dad looked paler than usual, which was saying something – he'd apparently had a terrible time learning to ride her board, maybe because of his bad ankle or maybe just because just like Tyler's mom, he used to drive a car. Even Tyler had to admit that in these cramped alleyways, riding a board wasn't exactly easy, but if you walked you risked being… mugged, or something. He'd never actually fallen off his board or stayed off it long enough to find out.

Eyes. There were eyes watching them, and he could see clawed hands too. Weirdly enough, his vision seemed to have improved slightly, though there was little time to consider it as he zoomed right past, keeping his focus on his dad. His wobbly, vulnerable dad. If he came off the board, he'd be in serious trouble, never mind Tyler himself. "Hey, how far is it?"

"Google said twenty minutes", he replied tersely. The board wobbled slightly with the weight of the big, black bag of Tyler's stuff. "How did I even pass the test for driving this thing, right?"

Tyler checked back over his shoulder, and there was a looming shadow; a big thing, man-shaped but with great horns jutting from its head. A dark cloud billowed from its mouth. "J-just keep going. Something's following us-! I think it's the same as last time, too…"

 _Houndoom_. But it wasn't quite all Houndoom, there was a lot of man still in it. He wondered, for a moment, if maybe this was some sort of escaped PKU experiment, if they really wanted to turn into Pokemon, and this guy had just not managed to go all the way. Man, he was glad he was going to PKE.

"Darn, we shouldn't haven't taken the back alleys." Stan laughed, and it almost drowned out the growling of the streets. "Why does Google have to be so  _dramatique?_ "

"I have no earthly clue.  _Keep going!"_

And away they went, the thing dropping to all fours to try and keep up. Now it looked even more like a Houndoom than before. A were-Houndoom, maybe. "Tyler!" it seemed to shout at him. Just like always. "Tyler!" What a curious roar, it almost sounded like a human word that was his own name. Kind of sounded like that dream he'd had a lot, or maybe someone he'd heard before. Weird. He was definitely going to ignore it, it probably wasn't real anyway.

"Two minutes from the entrance, apparently." Tyler's dad looked around, puzzled. The chip in his head was likely projecting a map of the world onto his vision - he usually used it for shares but it definitely had other uses. Google, for instance. "I do  _not_ see anything that looks remotely like a school. Wait - Google needs an  _update?_ Like, right  _now?"_

"D-don't joke around, Dad!"

"I'm not! Google never jokes!" He slowed down slightly, poking at the air and trying not to fall off his board at the same time. "Update... update... come on!"

And then the charging thing caught up and made a great leap for Tyler, holding him tightly from behind. Sort of like a bear hug, except bears didn't exist anymore, and this guy was definitely not a bear in the slightest. Claws dug into his clothes, smoke blocking Tyler's vision in a matter of seconds. Eyes watering, he stumbled off the board and-

**_BANG! BANG! BANG!_ **

-the thing slid off Tyler's back and rushed back down the alley, whimpering. Tyler sat up with a low groan: his eyes were stinging something awful, and he was dead sure the creature had drawn blood trying to hug him.

"Damn, I almost had it!" Oh, that voice was familiar. Too familiar.

"Hey, Piper", said Tyler's dad, putting on that casual voice he always insisted on for Tyler's friends. "Do you know where the PKE School is?"

Tyler rubbed at his eyes. Sure enough, it was Piper; she was wearing some sort of body armour that made her look vaguely police-y, and carried several guns and a taser. What had happened to her, he wondered? The idea of  _Piper_ handling a  _gun_ was ridiculously foreign - the girl was from a family of rich vegans, for crying out loud! "I just came from there, actually." Her voice held little in the way of emotion; she was probably Googling a bunch of synonyms for idiot even as she spoke. "Just a quick hunting exercise." Piper pointed to a nearby mailbox. "That's one of the secret entrances, except Google thinks it's the main one."

No  _Oh hi Tyler, good to see you._ None of  _You're my friend, Tyler_  or even  _hello_. Just business as usual, that was Piper. Tyler tried not to look too disappointed about that. His dad said a few words best not printed here, then sighed and offered Tyler the bag. "Well… It's up to you now, right? Do your best and stuff."

"Er... thanks?" Tyler did his best to look grateful, because he was; his dad was just awkward when it came to showing it. Maybe he was jealous of Tyler for finding a spirit, which... they were genetic or something, weren't they? Couldn't the same one work for his dad, and yet it'd chosen to jump a generation and...?

"Plenty more where that guy came from. You should go," Piper snapped, and the mailbox opened up into some kind of unholy long chute to hell. Tyler looked back at his dad one last time, only to find him absorbed with the contents of his own head. He may well have been ignoring Tyler on purpose, using the silly Google update to turn away. Then again, knowing his dad, it was more likely he just couldn't stand seeing things broken and not updating.

"Later, dad", he managed. "I'll try to ring you once I'm in there?"

"No phones allowed," said Piper.

"Oh. Right."

"The update's almost here," Tyler's dad sighed, then uncrossed his eyes and looked at Tyler, just for once. "I'm serious, stay safe. The school had better look after you." He forced a smile. "I know your mother will want to ring you every day. I'll try to stop her?"

"No phones allowed," Tyler repeated dully, and then someone - probably Piper - shoved him into the abyss.


	3. One-Armed Bandit

No phones allowed.

As Tyler fell and slid and fell some more, this sentiment wormed around in his head. No phones allowed. No talking to his parents, or what few friends he had left. No wonder Piper and Jordan and Ray had fallen out of touch when they got their spirit guides, and it wasn't because they hated him or something. The tunnel felt too small, he was bumping his elbows on the insides of it, and the friction was awful even with all his layers of clothing.

Would he even be allowed to leave?

Oh Arceus above, what have I gotten myself into?

Thinking about this, Tyler's heart decided to start rocking around inside his chest, smacking against the cavities, making him sick to the stomach. His breath quickened the faster he went down the slide, which seemed to last even longer than one of those awful dreams where you were trapped in the roaring darkness forever. The thing in the alleyway had roared his name, shouting, and Tyler imagined it had been telling him not to go on, but it was much too late. He'd made his choice, and now all he could do was panic-

Suddenly, a door flipped open, and Tyler shot out onto a cushy mattress, his breathing hard and wild. The holoband beeped softly, and a needle slipped into his arm; he hastily reprogrammed it to be a half-dose, this time, so he should at least stay awake if not particularly calm.

"Well, look who just fell in!"

Eyes stared down at him, shades of violet and piercing blue. With a shudder, he remembered they'd spoken, and there were actually people there, and they were looking at him, and he was as terrified as if he was pantsless in front of them. Maybe under normal circumstances, Tyler would have tried to make a similarly bad pun right back at the person talking to him, but on his hands and knees, trying to throw up, now was really not the time.

Not to mention, the guy standing behind the guy standing over him, that guy looked awfully familiar - short, a bit chubby, big eyes, why was he straight, giraffe hoodie. Tyler knew him, and he scrambled for a name amidst all the panicked thoughts regarding his own imminent death.

Jordan? He tried to ask, but nothing came out besides panting and a slight, questioning whine. If Jordan understood, he only smirked the most perfect little smirk, and patted away at his tablet.

"Not gonna hurt you, come here for a second." The guy who wasn't Jordan helped him up, though apparently only to wrench Tyler's holoband off his arm before dropping him back down on the mattress. Not too roughly, which was surprising – this guy did look to be built for weightlifting, and he had tattoos all over his arms. Pokemon fought cowboys and the Simpsons on a single bicep; Tyler's breathing slowed just trying to work out the plot of what he was seeing. "Got any more contraband with you?"

No, Tyler was pretty sure the holoband was all that might be considered contraband, but he needed to be sure he wasn't about to be left without something very important. "Uh, my quetiapine. I-in there? It's… uh, needle?"

The not-Jordan waved a hand. "Don't worry about it! We can stick whatever drugs we need in the school bands. You're just going to have to install whatever apps you had on this one." He paused, then twirled the holoband around a finger before tossing it into a nearby box; Jordan just managed to duck out of the way. "Calming down? The name's Phillip, though some call me Charon. You're on PKE turf. My turf."

"Y-yes, ah." Tyler struggled to his knees, holding his chest. He was breathing hard enough that it hurt, and his thoughts were a gibbering mess of eyes and stop. Trying to focus on Phillip was hard enough, much less what he was saying, but he got the impression that he was in the middle of some sort of PKE scan or inspection or something. Maybe he could get some sort of answer here. "That's… great. S-so… what Pokemon…?"

The guy who was not Jordan went to answer, but Jordan – as in not not-Jordan – elbowed him hard. "Oh, you must be new. That's like asking a lady her age, you know?" His smile never seemed to die, regardless of what he said; he could have said something like macabre or even death and it would have just curled right around the words. Maybe there was something off about Piper, but Jordan was just as Tyler remembered him, adorable and cocky and just all-round happy to be here. "So, what's yours?"

"O-oh, no. That's just… what I was trying to ask… actually…"

Piper landed on the mattress with barely a thud – and on her feet, no less. "Less talking, more inspecting." To which Jordan bowed way too low before approaching Piper, holoband held out to her as though to be kissed- and Tyler didn't get to see any more of that. Phillip the tattoo not-Jordan guy grabbed him from behind, and forced him back down on the mattress.

In principle, what he was doing was simple enough: He passed his own black holoband over Tyler's clothes until it beeped, at which point he dug around in whichever pocket was nearest, pulling out all manner of things. String, chewed gum, a few beads… nothing escaped Phillip's inspections no matter how hard Tyler wiggled.

But oh, wiggle he did. To Tyler, the manhandling was only making his anxiety so much worse, reminding him of the awful beast holding him much too tight and saying his name over and over. "Stop!" he gasped, but it was such a small, pitiful sound that Phillip had no reason to hear it or pay attention.

"We have to check you for bugs just in case, sorry," he grunted, like saying sorry would somehow prevent Tyler from trying to kick him in the head. Eyes started to fill the ceiling. Yellow eyes, pink eyes, but blue eyes the most and brightest. They were watching him, and Tyler wasn't sure why, it was surely just his spirit friend – and yet he felt very, very scared. Like they were going to stare him into oblivion, or worse.

Phillip's hands roamed under one jacket, then another, and then finally under his shirt, looking for pockets. With a flick, the guy sent Tyler's pocket knife spinning across the floor, then proceeded to stomp on it with a boot, which finally prompted words to come sputtering from his victim's mouth. Anxious, stammery, frightened words, but words nonetheless. "No! No-! J-just stop it!"

At that, he was dropped in a whimpering heap. "Go," said Phillip, but not to him. "I'll handle this my way." And there was something in his voice now, something old and something very annoyed, but no way to escape him or whatever the hell he was about to do, and that was the scariest part of all.

At his mere word, Piper and Jordan moved on to whatever was beyond the sliding grey doors; or at least he caught the back of a giraffe hoodie and an outstretched, held hand. Piper was gone. Piper was gone, maybe even taken, and there was little that could be done about it. Phillip stood over him, an immovable barrier.

"So I guess you don't have anything valuable, then."

Piper, Piper, Piper. He'd only just met her again, but she seemed so… indifferent. Cold. Hot? Tyler's head felt cold and hot and heavy and light at the same time; he was throwing up and swallowing down all at once. "I-I thought that check was for bugs."

"It is." Phillip grinned. "But they call me 'Charon' for a reason. I don't let anyone in unless I get paid. Now, Piper said you were pretty well off, so where are you keeping it?"

Eyes. Judging, analysing, stripping him down to look for the money he definitely didn't have at all. His breathing took off again, like he'd just been taking a break from jogging and now he was back at it again, except despite all the heaving Tyler was going exactly nowhere. "I… I don't…"

"In this school, what decides whether you stay or go is your rank, see? And your rank is decided by how many times you win. So, if I beat you… Let's play a game." Phillip nodded at his own great idea, and placed a deck of cards between himself and Tyler. "The loser gives up all he's got. If you don't play, you lose, dead easy."

"S-so I have to play." This was ridiculous. Cards? Tyler wasn't even all that good at card games. That had always been maybe Piper's thing, or Jordan's ("but only if they've got some cool pictures on them!"). Not Tyler's, definitely not if the pictures weren't at least half-cool. With a shudder, he sat up, eyeing the back of the deck. Flamboyant looking stuff; five or six ornamental Pokemon surrounding an apple tree, with an Ekans wrapped around it. Kind of Biblical, in a way; ever since the spirit dimension had been uncovered, people had worked some funny ideas into their respective religions.

"Old Maid, Svarte Petter, Le Pouilleux, Unggoy, Babanuki. Ever heard of it?" Scooping up the cards, Phillip began to shuffle. For such a big guy, he had deft hands; the deck moved like water between his fingers. He went through a few show shuffles, seemingly just to intimidate Tyler all the more – riffle, weave, overhand – then started to deal all the cards between them, face down.

"Here's how it goes. I'll show you my cards face-down. Pick one." He smirked. "If the colour and number matches with any cards you have, make a pair and put 'em aside. Then you offer me your cards. Person with the most cards left, loses."

Suddenly, Tyler didn't feel quite so afraid anymore. Phillip looked like a simple enough guy, even if his tattoos were awfully complicated. Simple game for a simple guy. "A pairing game? Uh… really?"

Make a pair? This sounds like stuff for elementary schoolers! Maybe even pre schoolers!

"Not quite." Phillip passed his holoband over the cards he had dealt, and the figure of a screaming old lady rose from them. She was, quite clearly, holding an oversized Queen card. "There's only one queen in this deck. If you're holding the Old Maid at the end… well, that's it for you. You won't be able to make a pair!"

So it's just a game to see which of us can pass the Old Maid off to the other person? Does this even… is this even a proper game?

Tyler would have laughed at that, but suddenly a pair of eyes lunged out of the wall – a Drampa! – and the beast curled itself up and up in a big pile behind Phillip. It was absolutely massive, three metres long at least, and its eyes seemed to glow a very angry red. Enough to give anyone a heart attack; Tyler's heart definitely skipped a couple of beats. "Is that…"

Phillip grinned. The Drampa grinned even wider, and began to circle Tyler, sniffing at the air around him. "Yeah. You have to play a game with your spirit against mine. Winner takes all."

"B-but I… I don't have… I don't…" The Drampa jabbed its nose into his side, though all Tyler felt was a slight chill. "Stop!" The drugs were at least calming him down enough to speak, but what with Phillip outright not listening, it didn't seem to be helping much.

"Just pick up your cards," he snapped back. "If you've got any pairs, put them face up." Standing over Tyler, he proceeded to simply drop whatever pairs he had, perhaps because he enjoyed seeing the guy flinch or something. "Make it quick. I've got an appointment with a one-armed bandit, if you get what I mean..."

"A-appointment?"

"None of your business!" Homer Simpson's eyes bulged with the vein in Phillip's neck. The Drampa opened its mouth, and roared with its owner, except it was in perfect English with a slight British accent of all things. And also, its voice wasn't quite there, like it existed but not quite. There was an echo to it that simply shouldn't happen.

"Just hurry up and lose already!"

"Lose…" Tyler repeated, taking what pairs he could see in his hand – two fours, two eights, and two kings – then taking a card from Phillip's hand. That was the Queen – the Old Maid – and now he had to get rid of it by making Phillip take it, but the Drampa was uncomfortably close, and looking at all of his cards as well. Figuring out which one would be best to take, most likely.

Thinking quickly, Tyler shuffled his cards together, offering them to Phillip face-down. "Um… take one?" There was no way to bluff in this game – well, not in this version at least. His only hope was to hope that Phillip had poor luck. The whole thing was a gamble for him right now.

Wait, gamble?

'One-armed bandit'.

Ohhhhh.

So that was why he was so desperate for money. Phillip glared, taking a card from the hand, but he was smirking. Did he like the risk, maybe? Did he just think he was lucky all the time? "Not the Maid. What a shame... for you." And to Tyler's surprise, he shuffled his own hand, then dealt it face down on the mattress as well. "So you're into luck as well, right? Doesn't it give you a rush? Like, it's such a good feeling when you win. That's why I stay here."

Right, so he was completely off his rocker. And Tyler had no choice but to play, though there was something rather peculiar about how the Drampa was merely a slight breeze. He'd never seen a pro manifesting anything like that before... wasn't it always more impressive? It was, but with no choice but to play, Tyler picked a card. A red six, he had a red six. Another pair.

And the Old Maid, he still had that as well. For as long as he had it, he was going to lose. If this was a spirit game, what would happen when he lost? He breathed in and out, and tried to pretend he could actually somehow control his fortune and win. How the hell that was good gaming strategy at all, he had no idea; if this was some sort of test, Tyler had little clue what it was supposed to be testing. "I'm not… entirely sure…" He hesitated. "Uh, sh-shouldn't you have cool armour or something?"

Phillip blinked, and the Drampa blinked, then it slid away with its head hanging low. ("Cheater, cheater", it muttered.) Its owner picked another card, leaving him with only three cards in hand and Tyler with four. And given the uneven number, what card he'd ended up with was kind of obvious.

"Ha! The Maid..."

So now, if Tyler could just keep him from giving it back-

"Hey, Charon! Go pick on someone else! Like, maybe not a newbie! Even if he's rich, I'm not standing for it! I'm coming right over there! Here I come!" And in came storming a curious fellow, about Tyler's age but much taller and built like an absolute jock, with the strangest, wildest, blue-est hair he'd ever seen. It couldn't be dye, could it? It was just so weird, it almost went right round the other way and became natural. More importantly, the guy seemed to be on Tyler's side and he appreciated that.

The Drampa reared up at that, hissing. "You're going to interrupt this? Now?"

"Random holograms aren't a proper spirit game, you weirdo! Get lost! What is even with you filthy rich bastards?" Then, to Tyler: "He does this to everyone. Go on, get out."

Swallowing down his panting breath as best he could, and clutching his arm where the needle had gone in, Tyler lurched for the exit, and hopefully fresh air and answers too. Behind him, he could hear Phillip whining and the blue-haired guy threatening to throw him out. ("This time, for sure! What's with you and demanding a toll or something, huh?") The humidity in the room seemed to spike quite suddenly, something he was only aware of when he walked out into the next corridor and found it still cool and air-conditioned.

No Piper in sight. But Jordan was waiting a little further ahead, with his giraffe hoodie pulled all the way up over his hair, and tablet in hand. "Oh, so you survived Dev- I mean, initiation? Come on, then." He smirked, and as usual it was just perfect. "Wild guess, I think you want some answers after all that!"


	4. Payback!

"H-how long have you been here?" Tyler stammered, as he was half-dragged down the claustrophobic corridor.  
 _  
And how long have you been with... her?  
_  
At least he'd remembered to grab the large plastic bin bag of his stuff just before he ran, but that wasn't exactly the  _best_ idea; it was honestly weighing him down. Digital portraits of what he imagined were previous principals lined the walls, their cold eyes seeming to follow him from the screens. None of them looked particularly friendly, more iron-deficient than anything. "I haven't seen you in… it feels like forever. Must have been – I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was 2039? When you… I, well, I… I mean…"

Jordan adjusted his hood, as though self-conscious about whatever it was covering. Odd; surely he didn't have much to hide. Half his blonde hair was sticking out already. "I never said you'd get answers from me! That'd be too easy. But it was 2038." He raised his tablet up a little, flicking over some sort of calendar app. "Yep! Says here, June 5th. 2038."

Tyler stuffed his hands in his pockets, slightly embarrassed that he'd even asked, let alone gotten it so wrong. "Right… the day of the tournament."

Was there anything he could have done?  _Something_  he could have done? Tyler certainly wished it, even when the thought of Piper's held hand came barging back into his head. Jordan was not a particularly easy guy to hate, or be jealous of; he was just too happy.

"Hey, don't worry about it." That beatific smile returned, wiping from Jordan's voice any trace of melancholy he might have had. In fact, his voice seemed to bounce up half an octave, perhaps in some excitement. "Gotta do a job here! Any food allergies we need to know about?"

"Er… no." Jordan made a note, and Tyler hesitated in the silence; he'd never told a single counsellor what he'd seen happen to Jordan that day. Seemed like he wouldn't be able to tell Jordan about it, either, or ask anything regarding it, and even though maybe that was for the best, it still kind of hurt. Jordan had never been one to withhold information or avoid a subject; was he doing it now? Or was he just being Jordan as Tyler remembered him, bouncing between topics? He certainly  _seemed_ normal enough, but then there was Piper.

Jordan looked up, with those big ol' puppy dog eyes of his. "Medications? Besides that sedative you've got."

Tyler blinked, and tried not to think about how nice, quiet, vegan bookworm Piper had somehow ended up handling and using firearms. Whatever training she'd been through, it must have been something else. "Nothing else."

"Okay, so what about your language? English's your first, right? Nothing exotique?"

The way Jordan said it, you could just about  _taste_ the 'que'. There was a definite click to it, and a particularly saucy space just before the question mark. He was clearly having fun with even this menial job – Tyler would have questioned how the hell that was possible, exactly, but this was  _Jordan_. Jordan always had fun, even if it cost him everything else.

 _Did you even manage to have fun on June 5th, 2038,_  Tyler wanted to ask him. "Just English", he replied instead. "No others."

"Boring, boring." A little way down the corridor was a plain door, painted navy blue. Jordan stopped so suddenly in front of it, Tyler just about walked right into him. The giraffe hoodie nearly flew back, but the short guy held onto it. "And when did the panic attacks start?"

Tyler's mouth felt dry. "I… I…"

"Don't worry, it's not a real question I have to ask or anything." Jordan smirked. "Just wondering why your spirit hasn't showed up yet. That knight in shining armour had to come and rescue you, right?" He stared into Tyler's eyes then, as though looking for something there. He seemed almost... serious? Something in Tyler's throat buckled, and he gasped for breath, but Jordan just kept on staring, as though he'd found something in a curiosity shop. "See, I'd love a rematch, but I can't have it if you won't wager."

Wager? Wait,  _rematch?_ Surely not, Jordan wasn't into  _betting_ , he'd never been- and Tyler would have answered as much, but he seemed to be getting cut off an awful lot today, and fate seemed to have even more cutting off in store for him. In this case, the door opened.

"New student too see ya, miss!" Jordan announced, and handing over his tablet to the lady who'd just opened the door, waltzed off down the corridor. "I'll see you later, Tyler! Hope you get those shakes sorted out."

"Yeah…" Tyler swallowed again, though it was almost difficult to feel nervous in front of the lady. She was a round sort of person; round cheeks, a round bun of grey hair, round buttons on a polka-dot dress. Even her smile was a nice, roundish curve that followed the round line of her equally round chin.

"I'm the principal, dear," she said to him, and it was absolutely adorable of her to do so because she was  _totally_  the principal. To Tyler, everything about her just seemed to exert… principal-ness, despite the portraits in the hallway being generally stern and gaunt. Maybe it was because she seemed slightly overbearing, or maybe he just wanted to believe she was his principal and not some terrifying vampire-esque figure from the hall's digital portrait selection. "You can call me Mrs Bell."

"Uh, I'm Tyler…" He expected they would go into the office and sit down, but she seemed content to lean against the door, examining the tablet Jordan had given her. "H-he said you'd have… answers or something? I'm pretty confused."

"Yes, well. Welcome to Long Island's Academy for Psycho Kinetic Exploration, or PKE for short, dear. Even I use that abbreviation sometimes, it's completely okay to use." She peered at him. "Well, how much do you know about spirits?"

"Uh, well, the doctor said mine was giving me panic attacks, but I can't see it or anything. Jordan was saying-"

Mrs Bell flapped a hand. Even her fingers seemed rounder than most people's; she was definitely making some mistakes on the tablet's screen as she tapped away, though she was just as quick to delete her errors. "No, no. You don't know anything about how the spirits made it here? The explosion? Then it's rudimentary history classes for you. And- these panic attacks. There's a counsellor for that, dear! And if you can't see it, meditation class, then there's the usual game theory, maths, English, science, meteorology, physical education… Oh dear. You've only got one day of the weekend. Well, really it's half a day."

She frowned, seemingly trying to free up Tyler's schedule before shaking her head in utter disbelief. "At least tomorrow is a Saturday, so that's one of the counselling days. And you only have to  _watch_ the compulsory tournaments, until you can actually compete. So tomorrow shouldn't be too much of a problem, and then… Ah, what are your marks like, dear?"

So many subjects he had to take! Only half a day's rest! Tyler's head hurt just  _thinking_  about all that. "I-I mean, I know about the explosion. It opened a hole in the spirit realm and let us get the spirits… okay, fine, so I don't really know why spirits latch onto people or anything. But I know a bit. So maybe I… don't have to do the history?"

There was a loud  _clunk_  from the office, something dropping from a long white tube into a white wicker basket. Mrs Bell remained completely unphased. "Not really enough. Would you say you usually get Cs?"

Again with the marks question. He supposed he'd have to answer. "Usually I do well in English. Not so much in maths or science."

"Yep, your school report says as much, dear." Mrs Bell smiled at him, warm and welcoming. "Oh, don't be surprised. We can look up most of your medical and educational information, it's just part of the system. Your doctor signed a release of information statement."

 _Great_.  _Just_   _great._ Tyler rubbed nervously at his neck, and put down the bin bag; it was starting to weigh on his arm. "Then how come you had to ask?"

"Well…" The principal's smile took on another meaning, something more insidious. For the first time, Tyler felt a deep fear of Mrs Bell. "A good gamer tends to bluff, dear. Let me just get you your new holoband, it should be ready by now…"

She turned away, which was a relief due to the mildly creepy smile issue going on there. He followed her in as far as the door. The principal's office was all shades of white; the carpet was beige, and the walls cream, while the ceiling was almost a blinding white. It was modestly decorated with pieces of furniture, each a slightly different style and shade of white. Tyler wasn't much of an artist, but he'd have imagined it would have been an absolute nightmare to draw.

A large, impressionistic vista depicting some gorgeous set of islands or other took up most of one wall, facing the desk. Being the only piece of colour in the room seemed to make it all the more vibrant, as was the fact that it seemed to be done with real paint and canvas. Tyler had only ever seen such a medium in an art gallery he'd visited once; the pigments were much too expensive for most to try, and spray cans had been banned ever since… well, forever.

"Here we go!" Walking over to the white wicker basket in the corner, Mrs Bell took out a long canister – presumably how things were sent through the tube system – and unscrewed it, removing a black holoband just like Phillip's. She turned it on right away, passing it over. "This comes with that medication of yours, and your timetable, and the map for the PKE academy installed. Why don't you try it out and find your room?"

"Welcome, EthanAlmighty!" The band chorused, and just for a moment Tyler thought he spotted concern on Mrs Bell's face. Or at least, something far away from all the control and knowledge she'd been displaying. This was a mistake, some kind of unknown, though it was fleeting and slight at worst. Nonexistent at best - he probably just imagined it.

"Ah. You may want to erase the old data. Funny thing, that should have been done already, but I'm sure you'll know how to-?"

Tyler nodded, already bringing up a holographic version of his timetable. Every day bar Sunday seemed to be jam packed with activities ranging from the expected (gaming) to the very much unappreciated (maths) to the downright weird ( _yoga?_ ). He wasn't going to have much free time, but maybe that was a good thing-?

"Yeah, I'll do it later," he replied, already stepping out of the doorway to retrieve his bag.

"Ah, maybe you should-?" He turned, quizzically. Mrs Bell's gaze was very sharp, and she seemed almost ready to call him back. That should have been warning enough, but Tyler shrugged it off, and she seemed to do so too, settling down instead in a sleek white chair. "Never mind, I think you're honest enough. Would you be a dear and close the door?"

One hour of highly claustrophobic corridors later (and two weird blue ovals and some sort of cafeteria), Tyler finally walked the length of the academy, and found his way to an odd door at the end of a long hall. Like every other door here, it was painted a bright pink, which was surprisingly not the easiest thing to pick out when  _every other door here_ was bright pink. He looked for the door number, and there was the difference; seashells had been hot-glued over the silver number plate. They crowded together, holding each other up – fragile in themselves, but strong in numbers.

And not just that. Real shells, each hollow and lacking a MADE IN TAIWAN sticker! Spiked, knobbly, scalloped, banded! Tyler had never seen shells before, only in books and the imprints they left in limestone, so the first few minutes he spent examining each one and Googling their different types on his holoband, tracing his fingers over the grooves and ridges. Apparently this one belonged to a creature that could sting you if you weren't careful; this one belonged to a hermit crab, as the indentations on its interior showed. Just  _beautiful_.

Piper had been to a beach once, where the water was actually blue, and she'd even seen a fish. She'd laughed and said it was boring. The sea just went in and out, and the sand all over the place. Literally all over the place! It  _covered_ the whole area! No vacuum cleaners or wave machines, like at the local pool. No sea monster holograms or slides, either. It sounded terribly peaceful to Tyler, not that he'd admit it out loud.  _("Yeah, that does sound boring…")_

Hardly daring to believe that this room, the pretty seashell room, might be his, Tyler knocked once, then twice, and finally held his holoband to the reader by the door. It slid all the way to the left, revealing… not much. Certainly nothing particularly pretty about this plain, empty room. The bunk bed was neatly made up, and there was nothing on the chest of drawers, nor the shelves. Just looking around, the only sign that someone had used the room before Tyler was the sea shells on the door, and a pinboard by the window, full of fading photos.  _Real_  photos, too! Now, what were they called? Polaroids?

All these layers of clothing were getting a bit uncomfortable under the academy's heating system, so Tyler shrugged off his first jacket, then his second, and put both with his black plastic bag on the top bunk, approaching the pinboard feeling almost naked in just a checked business shirt. "Let's see…"

Sadly, the photos weren't of pretty beaches or island views. They were all of children, ranging in age from maybe twelve to barely walking age. Tyler counted maybe four or five different kids in the pictures, though without a group shot it was difficult to tell, and there were six names written underneath one photo:  _Devon, Dylan, April, Matt, Dawn, Saoirse._  Siblings, maybe, but then that would be a huge family. Maybe they were cousins. But no - six cousins? Did anyone even  _have_ that many these days? Maybe these pictures were from a few generations ago, they seemed faded enough.

The family, or group, or family group - whatever it was, they seemed to spend a lot of time down at some sort of beach, going off all the water in the background – nothing like what Piper had described though. They were standing on some kind of metal platform in most of the pictures, or swimming in black stuff Tyler hoped was water. Why, who knew. They would all likely get sick from going there! Where was a responsible adult-

"Hey! What're  _you_ doing in my room?"

Oh, so someone did live here after all. Tyler leaped back from the pinboard, and came face to face with the guy who'd interrupted Phillip earlier. His blue hair seemed even more ridiculous up close; he had to be absolutely loaded to afford a dye like  _that._  Or perhaps it was a wig? Still, it looked almost too soft and touchable for that. And even the man's eyebrows were blue. That  _had_ to be dye, surely! "Um! I-I'm new," he managed after a few awkward seconds. "And this is my room… apparently?"

The big guy folded his arms, and Tyler tried not to make too much of a note of the muscles involved there. He was fit, all right. "That sounds like something a  _capitalist_  would say."

He blinked, then started to fidget with his fingers. This was the guy who'd saved him, wasn't it? Why wasn't he being merciful like before? "N-no, it's not. Th-the principal said- I think – er, do you remember me? At all?"

"I remember you, all right," the guy growled back, and took a step closer, like what he remembered was a sour memory. It suddenly occurred to Tyler that maybe his services weren't  _free_ after all, though asking at this point would have been suicide. "And what's your stuff doing on  _my_  bunk? Show me your holoband."

Of course this guy would insist on the top one. Very mature. "R-right. I… didn't realize it was yours." And he held his wrist out, which the guy proceeded to inspect with his own band.

"Because you think of everything in terms of  _stuff,_  right? That's  _capitalist_ thinking. I hate those." As suddenly as he'd appeared, the jock turned away. "And I hate jerks like you, so you had better watch yourself while you're here. You'd better be honest with me, or you'll pay for it! And expect to be tested, too. I have to get up my rank somehow. So far, I've been through twenty-three roommates, so don't think you're special or something. You're just another  _capitalist._ "

_Capitalist? What does that word even mean? I mean, I guess it sounds... old? I might ask Piper later._

Tyler's holoband beeped gently, and he glanced at it in some horror. There, next to the map, was a little green smiley face, and a  _'YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION: ROOM 213'_. He was in the right place, all right. Just with the absolute worst possible choice of roommate he could have gotten. "Uh… And you're  _sure_ this is, um, my room? Y-you were just… verifying that, right?"

His new enemy just snorted. "You can ask to be transferred to another room when you've had enough, runt." Heading over to the bunk bed, he grabbed Tyler's bin bag and tossed it onto the lower bunk. "And  _this one_ is mine. Got it?"

So all in all, another godawful situation! Hooray. At least he didn't feel like his heart was going to explode or anything - come to think of it, this might be the  _least_ panicked Tyler had felt all day. Maybe that was a positive, though right now, he felt as though he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

_I'm definitely going to need that counselling after this._


	5. Metamorphosis Is Not A Spoiler, Right?

Well, Tyler had gotten what he wanted, but it wasn't quite what he'd expected.

I mean, Room 213 to start with. A small, barren room, the biggest thing in it being his nameless roommate (who seemed to hate him). No phone, and Phillip trying to shake him down on entry. Piper being different to what he remembered. No friends, really. No spirit that he could see. The panic attacks seemingly coming whenever they wanted. The strange behaviour of the principal, the lack of answers, and the distinctively serious stare Jordan gave him. The promise of  _'rematch'_.

And of course, Piper with Jordan. Why, and why did he mind so much? Was it because it was so unexpected, or did he expect something else? Something more?

_'Hello' would have been nice._

Well, at least he didn't feel any of that prickling anxiety right now. No matter how much he thought of these things, they didn't seem to be triggering him like usual. He could just think of them, and let them gently float away. Panic attack? What was that?

With a sigh of relief, Tyler reached for his new holoband. It was black, and plain as everyone else's was; the only sign of any uniform in this school. There was no pet app on this one, though he had one downloading already. There were six cylinders of quetiapine in the band, so it did feel a bit bulkier and heavier. He was sure he'd get used to it, but the unfamiliarity made him feel just that little bit more lonely. Just another little step away from his home and dreams.

 _Hello, EthanAlmighty,_ the screen greeted him at his touch. Tyler had set it to mute for the moment, since his very angry roommate seemed to be having a very angry snoring session.  _What can I do for you?_

Time to wipe it of all those personal files that were probably on the thing, but he hesitated a second too long and someone knocked on the door. His roommate must have been a light sleeper, or maybe he wasn't asleep at all; he was out of bed and at the door in a moment. "Yeah?"

"Devon." It was Phillip, looking very meek. His Drampa made a huge show of kowtowing behind him, its big eyes full of nervous tears. Even the man's million tattoos looked a little less sneery and full of themselves than usual. "I'm just… here to show Tyler around, man. A-as ya wanted."

_'As you wanted'-?_

_"Yes, we're very sorry."_ The Drampa lifted its head a bit, looking almost annoyed it had to bow to Devon, but it didn't dare glare at him. It decided to rear up and glare at Tyler instead, like this was somehow his fault, but Tyler could only smile; the thing had a matching Homer Simpson tattoo to Phillip's Homer, right under its chin. Who knew how that worked with the scales.  _"Not that we **lost**. We're just sorry."_

Devon nodded. "Riiiight. And I don't want to see any of your shitty hologram games ever again, got it? We  _talked_  about this."  _Talked_ , here said with the sort of emphasis that indicated some kind of violence. Just lovely. Thanks for that, Devon.

"Got it." Phillip looked away, though Devon stood there with his arms folded until the Drampa disappeared with a soft  _peep._

"Gimme your holoband," he ordered, and finally let Tyler come past him through the doorway. "Both of you. Because  _you_ might start up something stupid, and you might use  _his_  to do it."

"Yeah, yeah…" Scowling, Phillip fumbled with his holoband, Devon helping Tyler get his off. Going off the look on Phillip's face, he had undoubtedly been hoping to do something, and Devon was in no mood to allow it. Man, Phillip was just doing his utmost to seem like even  _less_  of a decent human being, wasn't he? "Come on."

But despite Tyler's qualms, the inner screaming that Phillip was just an all round terrible character held no sway here. Because he was calm, and nothing was going to change that. Nothing at all. And so, he held his head up, and followed the tattooed man out.

"So about that Drampa-"

"This is the Lawn. We call the other one the Grass."

Phillip was not much of a tour guide, which was sort of funny because Charon was meant to do some sort of tour, or something. Maybe not, Tyler had never paid much attention in history class. He supposed he'd have to try a bit harder with this academy, if he really wanted to stay. At any rate, Phillip seemed beyond unwilling to speak of anything much; Tyler didn't yet know where he gambled whatever money he won, nor what that Drampa really was, or even if he'd been playing a Spirit Game at all. What was with these people and their utter unwillingness to tell him anything?

"That's the Throne," Phillip pointed out, as they walked across a giant blue oval. The grass crunched under their boots like a hundred packets of chips being opened all at once. Definitely not natural, but then again, very little in this place seemed to qualify as  _natural_. If that word had much meaning left these days.

"Throne?" Tyler asked, looking around. Grass in every direction, very fake grass too, but no thrones. Some of the other students were even sitting down on the blue lawn, all facing towards the sun. "Hey, what's this place used for?"

Phillip just snorted, the tattoos snorted with him, and Tyler felt his own pulse pick up, ever so slightly. It was hard not to feel just a little afraid of the guy who had tried to mug him an hour or so ago. "You can't even see the Throne? Seriously?"

Tyler checked the guy's left bicep, just in case he had an oversized throne there, but trying to find a specific object on Phillip's arm was more or less like playing Where's Wally, just with a lot more pop icons and Simpsons characters thrown into the mix. Squinting a bit, he picked out that Bart had a throne made of fireworks and crayons, made to look like that old fantasy drama show that ran on way too long, what was it called-

The sound of doors sliding caught Tyler's attention, and he hastily remembered the little step that had stubbed his toe last time they passed this way. "Cafeteria", Phillip pronounced flatly. "Whatever you do, don't drink the milk."

"Why?"

The look Phillip gave him was so full of abject disgust, Tyler felt sorry he'd ever asked. "It's worse than any gamble?"

After a quick tour through the Classroom, Classroom, Classroom, and Another Classroom, Phillip dumped Tyler in the cafeteria and set off for "a real room", presumably some place with one-armed bandits. With no classes assigned, no map in sight (or on his wrist, for that matter), and a rumbling in his stomach, there wasn't much Tyler could do but doze off at an empty table and wait around for the lunch bell. He'd just find his way back to his angry roommate later, or ask someone to help him, but right now, he really needed the sleep. Chances were Devon snored, anyway.

Sleep came easily to Tyler. He walked through a shadowy, purple-y kind of mist, and he breathed white mist, and maybe he was the mist. Mist was pretty stuff, it kind of made rainbows if the light hit it a certain way, but the mist Tyler knew from his home street was deadly, too. Things lurked in the mist. Right on cue, a hunched figure with horns made its way through snow in the distance, and he threw up a wall of trees to keep it at bay.

Then came hooves. And a man, on a horse. He seemed familiar, a kind of Prince Charming. Tyler recognized him from other dreams he'd had; the true friend, on a nervous white horse, always prancing just out of reach. Helping, and yet not. Obtainable, and yet too quick for him. But today, the man just rode in a straight line. Tyler ran after him, and sometimes floated and curled as the mist, but he couldn't catch him, and he couldn't warn him of the eyes ahead.

Hundreds of them. More than he'd ever seen. Eyes, and eyes, and eyes, in every color imaginable, and the horseman rode right into their path. They popped out of the forest, hissing, invading. Tyler felt a bit irritated at that. Really, why did the eyes have to keep on invading? Why were there always more of them? He didn't really like that, and wasn't this meant to be his dream anyway?

"Help!"

A foggy cry. Probably the guy on the horse, he looked to be in a terrible way now he was no longer on the horse. The horned beast turned, but it couldn't see past the trees, or get in. And the man dodged left and right, up and down, but he couldn't escape. The eyes came closer, and closer, until their claws came out of their pupils and they-

He woke up, gasping.

Sitting alone at a table in a now-packed cafeteria, his breathing coming fast and hard now, Tyler waited for the needle – and then realized he had never gone back to Devon, had he? He'd just stopped here, for a little break. A quick nap. Because Devon snored. And now he regretted it so much, his chest was throbbing and shaking.

He stood up. Food he hadn't touched was going cold in front of him. He sat back down, and wondered if he'd ordered it himself, or if someone else had. Probably the latter, there were enough people in the place. Oh god, so many people. He put a hand to his throat, feeling the pulse, faster and faster. The eyes were watching him still, they'd followed him out of the forest and now he could see glimpses of them in people's cups, in windows, in glasses of milk.

And everyone was staring. He could feel it. Everyone was  _watching_ him. He couldn't eat with all this attention, all this whispering that was definitely about him. Eyes prowled, circled, coming closer and closer. He had to get away, but he couldn't move. He was too afraid, and the fear drove the terrifying visions closer, and closer still. There was a weight on his chest, like something big was sitting on him, and when he looked up he caught-

-Jordan's smile from across the room, as he held Piper's hand. He wasn't really there, of course, it was just eyes, but that was what finally did it. That was what he just couldn't take anymore. He tried to scream, but all that came out was gasping, and the eyes lunged for his own. Pupils turned to claws, and his stomach churned. More eyes, now. No vision, just purple and red against the backs of his eyelids. Like… like mist. Bloody mist.

But where was the horse? His neck snapped back, like something was  _holding_ it. He needed a needle, now. Now! But his holoband… His fingers clawed blindly for it, and found only skin. No holoband! No needle! He needed it!

He tried his other wrist, just in case, but now he felt instead of skin, something hard and clammy.

_Hello, Tyler. It looks like you just can't cope._

That wasn't his own thought, and quite suddenly Tyler found himself shoved to the back of his own head, registering nothing but also noticing everything. His neck was making some noises necks definitely shouldn't make, and as he felt it with his scaly hands, it stretched under his fingers. Skin loosened, creating a frill of sorts. Wait, his hands had  _scales,_ and now even more? And more, and more! His eyes opened, and focused on them briefly, allowing him a look at the damage: awful, rough looking black scales.

_Yes! Good!_

Scales. And his neck was bending, curving. There was a weird flap of skin on it, just… flapping around. That wasn't human. What the hell was going on?

Someone screamed around that point, and whatever was also in control of Tyler, a weight in the front of his head, well  _that_ decided to hiss at everyone. "Witness me!"

"Sorry!" Tyler wailed, barging to the front of his head for just a moment. "Help! R-really!  _Help!_ "

"Get out of there!" A lady with a ridiculously long blonde ponytail vaulted over the back of a chair, upsetting a jug of milk in the process, and came for Tyler at a run. He apologized profusely, as something sparked up from his hands. Fire?  _Electricity?_ Whatever it was, it was stupid! This wasn't how humans worked at all!

"Can you try to calm down, please? Or do I have to hit you with a chair?" The scales felt like they were all over his body now, yellow and black replacing human pink at an alarming rate.

"Pokemon will walk the Earth!" Tyler's mouth hissed, and he found himself poking a very long and forked tongue out to taste the air. And wiggle at this person who was in his way, of course. At the same time as all this, he could feel something prodding at the edges of his consciousness; the messenger from his dream. The man on the horse. And after him came the eyes-!

"No, they will  _not._ We're going to play a game. Or possibly, I'm going to hit you with this chair. Which is now a sword. And security are on their way, all right?"

He and the lady weren't in the cafeteria anymore. A vague purple mist swirled around them. The man was getting back on the horse now, drawing a sword he didn't have before. And the lady plucked the eyes out of the air, one by one. Stomped on them. Then her Chansey stomped on them, too. And then the horse sat on them, and the rider hacked at them with his new sword. It seemed to take a long time and a moment, all at once. Tyler blinked, and he missed it, but at the same time it took forever. Strange.

Then again, everything was very strange at the moment. He was turning into some kind of monster, or freak, or something. Was that normal for panic attacks now? He wasn't sure. Dr. Gravey did look kind of weird. And the lady looked odd, too. Not like what he remembered from the cafeteria. Same face, sure, but now she had some sort of big, pink helmet, and a pink dress to match. Kind of like a flamingo, but with too many crests. One of those weird hoop skirts. Frills, lots of frills. Too many frills. And she was juggling one, two, three, four eggs. Out of one, she pulled a wineglass, full of water, and took a sip.

"A game, you say!", he was shouting, and stomped about, though of course it wasn't him. He wasn't one for shouting, or stomping either. He could feel his bones creaking, legs bowing out. An itching in his spine, and a pulling. Didn't hurt, until his tail started to get caught up in his belt, and his arms were too short to help, and yet the thing-that-was-not-him-and-was-him-at-the-same-time continued to yell.  _Proudly_ , even. "Do you know who you're up against?"

"No, and I don't have time for you right now. My lunch is getting cold. So let's just make a bet." Then, the strange lady in pink spoke more softly, and Tyler figured that was for him. He was definitely a much softer person than whatever else the lady was talking to. "It's just a bad dream. Your bad dream. Go to sleep."

And little by little, even though he really didn't want to, Tyler felt himself slipping away. And out of his body. He fell next to it, and disappeared into the mist, wandering somewhere outside the forest with the horned thing. He missed his body already.

But what stood in front of the pink frilly dress lady wasn't exactly human, so maybe it wasn't really his body at all. Maybe he just… he was. And now he didn't have a body. And there was, that was a Pokemon over there. And that was also a Pokemon. Yes, nothing to miss here. The Chansey patted him comfortingly, as best as one could pat mist, and offered him an egg.

"I'll bet you this", said someone. Who knew who it was? Tyler was much more in the mood for sleep at the moment. The horned thing mumbled his name, but he wasn't too loud. No snoring. He could live with it, so long as it didn't try to hug him. Hugging was bad, but he couldn't quite remember why.

"I can upturn this glass of water, without spilling a drop."

The Chansey giggled and held up a napkin. Ah, the napkin. Yes, the napkin! The unloseable bet! The  _napkin!_ Of course, and yet he didn't understand a lick of it. Which was funny! Very funny! Laughter rocked him into a deeper sleep, and everything was all right. Everything made sense. There was no need to wake up, or do whatever else it was he was thinking about. There was no snoring here, no games. No one-armed bandits. Most of all, no hand holding. Hand holding meant something terrible, but Tyler couldn't quite remember why that was, either. Same category as the hugging, he decided.

Anyway, things were good now that there were no things. So Tyler had a very good time, then he woke up and it was all over.


	6. (And Nobody Cares)

Tyler stared up at the ceiling. White. Nice, white ceiling. And here was his hand, reaching for it now. Charcoal black, the outlines of tiny pebbly scales a slightly deeper colour. Black, and black. And white. All was well.

He let his hand fall back on the mattress, taking his time to reacquaint himself with the world. He seemed to be in a hospital of some sort; there was a drip machine by his arm. And another bed to his left, empty. No door in sight. Tyler's tail had gotten tangled up in the sheets, and as he looked to get it out, he saw more black scales, but yellow too, and even some orange, like he was some sort of walking road sign.

And then he started to remember what he should look like, and it certainly wasn't this. Tyler whimpered, running his three whole fingers over his tail. He had a tail now. And two less fingers, though his other hand still had five (or four and a thumb, if you really wanted to be specific about it). So not all was entirely lost – his chest kind of had a human definition to it. Twisting his way too long neck around, he found that he had a few patches of skin amongst the scales, almost hidden by the hospital gown.

His clothes were in a pile at the foot of his bed, though they probably didn't fit him anymore; he had very strange, bunched up legs in a stupidly wide stance, and a ridiculous spiky orange frill to ruin all shirts forever with.

_Heliolisk just aren't made for people clothes, I guess._

Naked for the rest of his life, huh? That sounded just great. He wouldn't survive two seconds outside.

"Hello?" he asked, then noticed a large, red button at the side of his bed, and figured 'waking up as a lizard from the Pokemon world' did kind of qualify as an emergency. He was expecting a nurse, though; not someone in full body armour, complete with a hospital–green helmet and microphone-amplified voice. Tyler noted with some trepidation the gun hanging from this person's belt, and the bundle of wires it was holding.

"Ah, you're awake. Before we begin, I need to ask - are you a Pokeuman?"

"A what?" Tyler shook his head. His frill seemed to have a mind of its one, flaring up and out a little. "C-can you just tell me where I am? And what happened to me? Please? I- I mean, I've got a tail." He held it up to show, even wiggling it a little, and immediately felt stupid for doing so. And no, wiggling it with his actual tail muscles did not help the situation at all.

"I'll tell you what I'm allowed to tell you. If you co-operate." That got the figure – soldier? – a very hesitant nod and more frill flapping. "Very well." It stepped closer to him, but backed away a moment later; Tyler had without meaning to started sparking, little yellow flashes dancing over his hands and stinging his two human fingers. He stood up hastily, so he wouldn't set fire to the blankets or something, and ended up in the soldier's arms; his balance was completely wrong! His head was way too far away from his shoulders, to start off with, and as for the legs–

An alarm blared, and sparks savaged the solder's outfit; the hospital green flashed an awful lot of Bad Red Lights Tyler's way, as some sort of capacitor went  _pop_. Tyler fell back on the bed, or maybe he was pushed there, pedalling unhappily at the air. His tongue flicked in and out on purpose, as though that was going to fix anything. He tasted smoke. "Sorry! I didn't– I just didn't want to– please, where–"

The gun was pointed at his face. "Shut up. You'll get your  _fucking_  answers, just co–operate."

Tyler shut up, and as the alarm continued to sound, the soldier began their explanation. They spoke politely again, but now they were talking quickly; he guessed backup was on the way. "We have a theory that some people may be able to become Pokemon. Those with genes very predisposed to a certain Pokemon, who have been affected by the genetic component of the shockwave, and who have a very strong spirit of the same Pokemon that can completely take them over."

It was at this point that Tyler realized he'd started to spark again, and he tried desperately to stop himself before he set the bed on fire. Holstering the gun now, the soldier folded their arms – and even though their back was still smoking away, they did manage to look pretty intimidating. "I strongly suggest you stop that. Are you still possessed?"

Well, that raised an awful lot of questions, but Tyler opted to start at the start, and try to pat away the sparks as best he could while he was at it. The soldier was definitely right, they were annoying. And definitely a fire hazard, not to mention a hazard to any devices he tried to use. Like, say, a phone. How he wished he could just phone his parents right now and tell them how sorry he was about this whole lizard thing. He might never be able to go anywhere now. He might be destined for a  _zoo,_ if his speech was just the last thing about his body to change.

Ah… What was he going to do? Start from the start. Right. He might not have much time before all he could say was 'Heliolisk'. "No! No, no, no. No possession. But… But you were talking about a shockwave, right? You mean that old explosion thing? The uh, spirit one?"

"The same explosion that put a hole in the Pokemon dimension many years ago, by our founder Mr. X. We think it may have altered the genetics of certain city people, making them more susceptible." The solder sighed. "There is a lot that isn't yet known about the situation, but we have high hopes we can save the world. Especially with you on the team. So you  _will_  co–operate."

Oh good, so they were some sort of crazy. Not that Tyler was much better off, being a weird Pokemon lizard and all. Maybe he only thought he was a lizard, though on his right hand he really could only feel three fingers, and if he crossed his eyes he found something in his face that wasn't a snout.

"So my spirit completely took me over, and it did… this?" Tyler shook his head this way and that; it started as a general kind of  _no way_  but quickly deteriorated into an exercise where he was just trying to see how many directions he could move his head in. It was ridiculous how flexible his neck had ended up. "Is it like this for everyone?"

Was Piper going to have to go through this, too? Had she already done just that? What about Ray? And the thing in the alley, maybe–  _actually–_

"No, you are the first almost complete change we have seen," the soldier replied, as more rushed into the room and started trying to strap Tyler down on the bed. He allowed it, if only because he was too terrified to do much else.

"Oh yes it's quite exciting very good!" One of the newcomers had quite a high voice, definitely female, and she spoke much faster than anyone Tyler knew. "Only your eyes were completely unaffected a green–eyed Heliolisk can you imagine that you're going to be so good on the team."

She seemed almost gleeful about that. Tyler found it more creepy than anything, turning into a random two-legged lizard for absolutely zero reason (okay, so  _maybe_  there were reasons), but each to their own. "Uh. Am I going to go back to… me?"

"Yes yes you have seven days well five really because you slept through two oh look your fingers are coming back." And now the stranger sounded downright disappointed! How could you be  _disappointed_ that your patient was not going to remain a lizard? "We're going to do so many tests but you mustn't use your spirit okay no no not at all."

Tests? Probably less of the maths kind and more of the mad scientist kind.  _Goody._ "How come?"

"Do shut up," the soldier who'd first spoken to him said, but it was more directed at the speedy talker. "Overusing your spirit can have… more permanent effects. We're still researching that, but repeated use is… not good."

"Oh yes oh yes if you play too many games you can get  _stuck_ and then nobody likes you."

The figure held up the wires. "But! Have you heard of the rumors around Heliolisk? That it could charge enough energy with its frill to power a skyscraper? Imagine if that was true. We'd never have to worry about fossil fuels ever again. And that's your first test. Do you understand?"

Not that Tyler had ever really worried much about the climate change thing (they were all going to die anyway, weren't they?), but he nodded because there was very little he could do about any of this, being strapped down and all, and the soldiers got to work. The light above Tyler's bed soon began to glow a warm orange, warm in both the colour and the heat that trickled down. His frill seemed to appreciate that, and flared out all the way, apparently trying to soak up as much as it could. Weird. It probably meant something important, but Tyler had never been much of a fan of the sixth generation's lot, so he'd never really learned much about the lizard. "So you're going to test that or something?"

"Just on a small scale we wouldn't hurt a future team member not really or well maybe but not badly or anything you're so important."

"I said, shut up." The soldiers began to clip wires onto Tyler's frill, sparks already being to dance on its surface. He had to resist a sudden urge to shake them off; with each successive wire he could feel a line of sparks being siphoned away, like someone was taking his blood but without the pain bit. That strange feeling of being drained, that was it.

"Then… what am I trying to charge?" he asked, as the bundle of wires was plugged into some sort of hole in the wall. He could actually feel his sparks, his  _electricity_ flowing out and into the wall, and then away to some kind of dead end. "There isn't anything." He looked over at the soldier, twisting his long neck all the way around to see – but the helmet had never given away emotion and it wasn't about to start now.

"Not for now." More wires were plugged in now, and clipped to the frill. Even more of them were run into some sort of device one of the soldiers held in his hand. Tyler's sparks flowed now, a continuous stream of bloody current running through his body and into the distance. And he hadn't cared much for them before, but Tyler wasn't getting a straight answer here, and now his life energy felt like it was being  _taken away_  he was starting to feel just a little bit protective.

"H–hey! Just… what are we trying to charge?"

"Oh just the whole city nothing big no big deal–"

_"What?!"_

_"Both_ of you. Shut up!" the soldier said, flicking the power switch next to the bundle of wires. and suddenly  _everything_ bolted right out of Tyler's system and  _everything_ came flying back into it. He stood up on the bed with the energy of it all, a veritable lightning rod. And he lasted one, two, four, ten entire seconds – "It works! It works!" – before his brain shorted out, just came down in a wave of static and took the rest of Tyler with it.

He was somewhere between awake and asleep when he heard a voice. Shouting. Something was knocked over. A machine beeped. His head hurt, like something was stuck into it.

"You're not going to put him down! I'm pulling rank on you. Unless you want to  _fight?_ "

A Heliolisk, blue eyes and everything, stood in the corner and told him to watch with just a look. It was wearing a shirt and pants. Maybe it was a person, too. "And who's he to you?"

"I said, I'm pulling rank! No more of these ridiculous tests. No operating." Something was ripped out of Tyler's head, but he was too tired to moan. "What would X think of you nearly  _killing_ our only success story?"

"But the buildings–?"

A bottle, or jar, or something flew across the room and smashed against a wall. It gave one of the people a nasty scar, a huge slash across his face, or maybe that was already there. Older man. Slash face. Rings on his fingers. He had to remember that. The Heliolisk nodded, he had to remember that. He had to. "To hell with the city! Winning is what matters. And  _that_ is what you should be doing: Your job!"

But Tyler couldn't make out who was saying what. There were two voices, though, and one of them was much hissier and less shouty than the other one. "I'm right... You'll be sorry about this..."

"You and your  _fucking_ brainwashing! You think any of this is right? No! Winning! WINNING is what matters! You listen here, because I'm taking charge. THIS is the fucking plan."

"And what if I play a game with you?"

"You'll lose, that's what."

He was much too tired to do anything about it all, though, so he just let it go and moved on.

"Good morning! Or do I have to hit you with a chair to wake you up?"

It was the lady in the pink frilly dress, except she wasn't wearing that; just the plain suit and skirt she'd had when she'd first threatened Tyler with the chair. She was sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, patting his shoulder. "C'mon, little guy! We have stuff to talk about."

He sat up, letting her hand guide him against the head of the bed, and the first thing he noticed was that he was more… pink now. More pale. Less scales, more human. Much more human. Feeling around, Tyler found he had his hair back, ten fingers, and his vision no longer contained a snout even if he crossed his eyes.

The lady beamed down at him. She had soft grey eyes, which Tyler found pretty striking, and the longest ponytail he'd ever seen; it must have gone down to the middle of her back. "I'm Connie! Your counsellor. Since it's Saturday, I thought like, I'd come here to do your session." She smiled; Tyler guessed when she wasn't fighting mutant lizards, she was much more gentle. Ditzy, in a way. "You had an awfully bad dream yesterday. Wanna talk about it?"

 _Yesterday?_  It couldn't have been yesterday. It was supposed to take seven days for him to change back, and wasn't he… or was he? "Dream?" Tyler felt at his face, confused by how soft it felt. "It seemed real."

"What seemed real, man?"

He looked around, puzzled. He could see some brightly coloured posters on the wall, and a door from his bed. A trolley came through it every now and then. He seemed to have his own room of sorts; a curtain had been halfway pulled around the bed, so he couldn't see any other patients. And the ceiling was green. Had it been that way before? "I was definitely a… Heliolisk. And you fought me with a chair. Sword. Chair–sword? And then there was this soldier person… people. Wait, am I still a lizard? Lizard person? Pokemon person?"

_Monster?_

Connie took a deep breath, as though everything Tyler had said was utterly ridiculous and now she was going to have to explain it all away. "Okay, so! Let's tackle this one little thing at a time. Have a mirror."

He grabbed it with five fingers – counted them just to be sure (one, two three, four, five) – and then checked out his absolute mess of a face in the mirror. Except it wasn't a mess at all; he was completely human. Maybe there was a little bit of blue in his eyes, or his nose was a bit small, but he was very normal. And to be fair, the glinting in his eyes was probably just because he was threatening to tear up. "Oh god. How many days has it been, then? Seven?"

Connie shrugged. "One, actually. Let me tell you what happened, okay? So you know."

_But the seven–day rule. And the soldier said I was asleep for two days already, and I still looked like..._

Tyler rolled onto his (very human and  _also_ very normal) belly, trying to see if he still had a tail or not. His neck was too short to check properly, but he didn't think he could feel anything. While he was busy with that, Connie started talking. "You got possessed while you were having a panic attack, which is really common for people who get panic attacks and don't have any medications to calm them down! I see them all the time. So, you were possessed, and your spirit must be really angry, because you started stomping around saying things like  _'Pokemon rule!'_ and  _'Witness me!'_. We're gonna work on that, though, so don't worry. In the meantime, I brought you your holoband."

She pointed to where it was, on his bedside table. Tyler rolled back over. "And… then I turned into a lizard?"

"No, no, someone called security, and I defeated your spirit in a game. I guess your spirit made you think you were completely a Pokemon. That's very common, too." She smiled. "But like, you're not. Sometimes people can show a bit of overuse when they get possessed and they do start to change a little bit, but it goes away after a while and stuff, so all cool."

Yes, that sounded familiar, but not as she described it. "That's not… No, the overuse is what happens if you keep playing game after game. You get  _stuck._ " He shuddered. "Y-you need to warn people. They're gonna get stuck."

Connie smiled. "Did someone in the dream tell you that, Tyler? Like, one of those soldiers or something?"

"It wasn't a dream. It  _wasn't._ "

"Dreams are actually my specialty, so I know how realistic they can be. Especially with a spirit involved! You could like, ask yours not to give you bad dreams. I can show you how."

"No, not a dream. It's definitely what happened. I was a  _lizard._ " How could she have just forgotten such an important fact? Tyler couldn't begin to fathom it. "The soldiers were saying it was because of a genetic shockwave or something. They– they tried to make me power the whole city."

"I was there, remember?" She shrugged. "And I don't remember soldiers, or you turning into a Heliolisk. If you ask anyone who was in the cafeteria,  _what I just told you is what happened._ That means like, no lizards."

There was something almost steely in her voice there, almost like Connie was daring him to go ahead and ask someone else, like he had any friends to ask at all. He certainly wasn't in the mood to challenge it, even though she was so obviously wrong. Lying? Could she be lying? "So it's Saturday. And you're saying this all happened… yesterday?"

"Yep! Friday. I didn't actually hit you with a chair, by the way."

Well, it had been a Friday when all the strange lizard stuff happened. Something made some sense! Hooray! Tyler relaxed, very slightly. "Oh yeah, I know. I know. But I was really a Heliolisk."

Connie smiled. "We'll work on that. Maybe your spirit can help, or I can bring in someone who was at the cafeteria when it happened? Don't worry, though. You're doing pretty well." She sighed. "It's just been a really bad dream for you, I think… We'll work through it, don't worry. Until then, just rest." She looked over at his bedside table. "Oh yeah, and wear your holoband. It'll help with the panic attacks."

Just rest, despite her complete denial of everything that had happened? How was he supposed to do that? "Wh–what about the soldiers? The city?"

Connie shrugged. "Just a bad dream. We'll work through those too, if you want to. And I have to ask just 'cos I'm here, did you want anything for lunch?"


	7. I Believe You Not

  
Tyler really thought dinner would be peaceful, after the time he’d had. After turning into a lizard, or possibly just thinking he’d turned into a lizard (if Connie was right, and she wasn’t), and after being experimented on by soldiers, or possibly not at all, he was exhausted regardless. Two things were very true: he’d finally been discharged, and it was a Saturday. That was the one day on Tyler’s timetable not consumed by classes and yoga appointments. He could relax at long last. He could eat and feel satisfied that he felt full.

(And then go back to grumpy Devon and whatever he was doing now, but he tried not to think about that too much.)

The food didn’t look half bad in the cafeteria, either. The line was long, but there was good reason for that; he spotted roast chicken, vegetables, sauce, and even from the door, it smelled heavenly. No synthetic stuff here, or if it was synthetic, it was  _really good_.

And yet, dinner wasn’t peaceful. Not in the least. The moment he stepped in, fiddling with his hospital bracelet in an effort to get it off, someone snickered. This was confirmed to be aimed his way when someone else elbowed him. “Hey,  _Sparky.”_

“How’s the tail feeling?”

“Can I call you Frilly? I’m calling you Frilly.”

Five, six people, coming his way from every which way, calling out insults over the general noise of the crowd. Someone had a sign, in yellow and black, which was mostly unreadable besides one definite swear word. People were giggling, muttering to each other about whatever it was he’d done. What had he done?

Connie’s words echoed in his mind.  _You started stomping around saying things like ‘Pokemon rule!’ and ‘Witness me!’._ That sounded embarrassing, now he thought about it. Oh no, it  _was_ embarrassing–! If that was really true, then wouldn’t that mean he’d just… committed social suicide?

Oh god. He totally had done just that. And now he’d had the gall to walk back in here. No wonder–!

Tyler’s throat tightened. His holoband beeped; a change in blood pressure, probably. Or maybe his heart had actually stopped. He didn’t dare look around, keeping his head down as he moved through the cafeteria – but that didn’t work either, he made it two steps and then bumped into a wall. “Well, newbie? Gonna  _witness_  your initiation?”

Or, well, he thought it was a wall, and then she spoke. She stood at least six feet tall, with muscles you could have balanced full glasses of water on. Synthetic horns twisted from her head, and her pupils were slitted. With her every breath, great groups of muscles worked and rose and fell. “I–I don’t know what you’re on about,” he stammered, backing away, but from the look on her face she wasn’t going to let him off so easily.  

“Lizard kid,” she began. She had a very deep voice, though definitely feminine. “Fly–eater. I heard your spirit was  _so_ strong, you couldn’t control it at all. I heard you think you’re  _such_ a threat, you figured you don’t need clothes to defeat us. Care to take your pants off again for us?”

_I did what?!?_

“Heh. I think you’re a little shy. A little humble. That’s a good start, you’re going to  _learn_ some more humility today.” Her hands were tipped with metal claws; when she touched Tyler’s shoulder, he flinched. “Well, I’ve got a special meal for you. It’s time you learned how things work here.”

With a jolt, Tyler realized everyone had gone very quiet. The wall’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and she dragged him over to where an even more enormous guy sat, so huge he could have been mistaken for a grown man, and a big man at that. As the wall pushed Tyler into a chair opposite him, he handed Tyler a plastic fork, almost lost in his giant palm. Glancing down at the table, Tyler noted a similarly massive plate of… insects. Dead insects.

_Ohhhh, no, no, no, no._

He’d tried eating insects, once. Crickets were a common food if you lived on the streets, though apparently roaches were more plentiful. Tyler hated how their bodies crunched under his teeth, and when the insides popped inside your mouth, it was just… there was something instinctual about not wanting to eat insects, he reckoned. Any other meat. Squid, even.

“Bow to King,” the wall ordered. Tyler hesitated.  _“Bow!_ You’re lucky to even see him. _”_

Over at the buffet bench, Tyler caught someone staring from the queue. Jordan was more or less trapped in the line with half his plate full, so thankfully he couldn’t come over to hassle them right now and make everything even worse, but he seemed to be watching with keen interest.

“No, no.  _I_ should bow to such a fierce fighter. So  _strong_.” King, if that was really his name, bowed so low he almost ended up face–first in the ‘food’ he’d laid out. “Let’s initiate our new student with a healthy meal! And some applause for Tyler, if you will…”

Nobody clapped, until King glared about and his female friend began to applaud, convincing some of the other students to join in. With a violent motion, the giant stabbed into a… caterpillar, or possibly maggot, and ripped off its head with his fingers. He then offered it to Tyler, who recoiled. “N–no! Uh. I mean, I’m good. I… I’d kind of like some of that chicken? Over there? If that’s okay? I–I really need to go.”

King leaned right over the table, a now unidentifiable insect speared on his fork, and wiped his hand off on Tyler’s shirt. Lovely. “But  _that’s not what lizards eat,_ is it?”

Maybe it was the stench of the thing he was being offered. Maybe it was the abrupt realization that if he didn’t help himself right now, nobody was going to help him. But whatever the case, strength surged in Tyler’s limbs, and he ran for the door with everyone laughing at him.

King, naturally, was laughing the loudest.

\--------

Well, at least they let him go. But Tyler got hopelessly lost, since it was kind of dangerous to look at his holoband without running, and any wandering student who passed him only seemed to sneer or giggle. Asking anyone would probably end in him getting hissed at, or maybe some sort of insect–eating related comment, and it was also kind of hard to ask anyone anything when you were running.

He panted, trying to take his mind away from what had just happened. If he could just focus on his running – he must really have made a fool of himself yesterday, if it was yesterday. It probably was, the way everyone was treating it. His heart raced with the exertion, but his mind was racing too, and he couldn’t stop that. The exercise was making it  _worse_ if anything, his thoughts coming faster and his holoband threatening him with a needle.

“EthanAlmighty, your heart rate is–”

“Y–you know what, fine. Fine.”  

Not like anyone was chasing him anyway, though he felt like he had a thousand nightmares on his heels. Slowing his pace, Tyler soon slunk into a classroom just to get away from it, sitting down at a desk. It was some sort of science classroom; motivational pictures of Pokemon in lab coats on the walls, sinks and benches along one wall. On the teacher’s desk was a picture of a familiar man, with a slashed face. Someone Tyler remembered, but not from something that had actually happened, because he’d never really been a Heliolisk. He’d just stomped around and yelled some stuff. Stupid spirit.

As though in answer, his imagination conjured a Heliolisk onto the desk, finding it in the laminated wood pattern and coffee stains. It stuck its tongue out at Tyler, and then vanished. How very comforting. Trying not to think too much more about that whole mess, Tyler dug around and found a #1 Teacher mug, filling it up with water. His throat was dry from all the running and trying not to cry, and he was sure nobody would mind–

“ _Witness me?_  Really?”

And right as he sat down to mope, right as he was going to just feel awful about this whole stupid academy and wish he’d never come here – a hand came down on the table, upsetting Tyler’s mug. Phillip had gotten a couple of new tattoos; yet another Homer Simpson on his cheek, and a star on his neck (with a beer can in the middle). Tyler thought he could see an extra eyebrow piercing, too, but he wasn’t sure; Phillip had enough that you sort of lost track after a while. “Pretty stupid thing to say, if you ask me. The hell were you thinking?”

“R–really? Come on.” Tyler held up both hands, and suddenly wondered if maybe he could check something. Maybe the counsellor was lying for some weird reason, or she was just plain wrong. Maybe. He could prove it here, couldn’t he? “It’s been days since it happened…”

“Days? Ha! It was yesterday.” Phillip grinned. “You’re not getting off that easily! The whole academy heard you!” He smirked. “You know what I think? I think only someone on  _drugs_  would be acting like that.  _Expensive_ drugs. So, see, I’d be willing to help you if you gave me some to sell.”

Oh, of course it was money again. Typical Phillip. “Th–they didn’t! I didn’t!” Tyler rubbed at his neck frantically, then wrung his hands, lost for what to do here. It really had been one day, so the rest of what Connie had said was correct – as he already knew, but with every piece of evidence, his heart sank a little more. He hadn’t  _really_  turned into a lizard. The soldiers had never existed. And that meant he’d really… in the cafeteria… Ah, he just wanted to melt into his shoes and never come out. Crawl into a very dark corner, maybe.

“Come on. You  _had_ to be on drugs. So where are you keeping them?” Phillip took a step towards Tyler, and his Drampa came roaring up behind. It, too, had some new tattoos – namely, a Homer Simpson to match its other Homer Simpson tattoo. Tyler got the feeling that these two were not the most creative when it came to tattoos, or maybe they just weren’t very bright in general.

“I’m  _not–!”_

“Okay, okay. Just kidding.”

 _Just checking, more like!_  Tyler thought, but he didn’t dare say that. He was at that moment consulting his #1 Teacher mug for an answer to the meaning of life and desperately waiting for the bully to  _go away._ Which didn’t seem to be happening any time soon, but he could hope. “Phillip… or Charon, I guess. Um. What’re you actually doing here? Did you want something?” He paused. “I mean, other than drugs. Which I don’t have.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Phillip folded his arms. “You know, uh, I… I was gonna tell you something, but I forgot. I just… I just saw you, and it was something really important.” He looked almost worried. “I just don’t remember it.”

 _“You forgot?!?”_  the Drampa roared.

“Well, do  _you_  remember?!?”

_“You didn’t tell me!”_

“Tyler!” Jordan burst into the classroom, out of breath and yet trying to look as though he hadn’t been running at all. He rested his hands on his knees for only a moment before forcing himself to straighten. “I’ve been looking all over the place for you! It’s about– it’s about–” He stopped. “Oh dear. I’m sure I’ll remember it in a minute. Just a minute…”

 _“Enough with this!”_ the Drampa complained.  _“I thought we were going to fight him. For money?”_

Phillip shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I–I never was, I was just joking… I think… but I guess, since we’re here… I’m going to beat you over the head with my luck and you’re gonna give me money?” He smirked, pulling out a deck of cards; it was a very jerky motion. He seemed to be slowing down, for some reason, like a train running out of steam. “Yeah. Money.”

Jordan cocked his head, like some sort of oversized and poorly dressed virtual pet. “I don’t think so. You already lost to him. Devon, technically, but… Maybe it should be my turn to keep you busy, Tyler.” Then he shook his head. “Wait, n–no. You don’t have your spirit yet, and there was really something important–! What’s going on… why do I want to…” He stopped, eyes widening, and seemed to be trying to speak, but nothing was actually being said. Weird.

 _“Phillip?”_  the Drampa asked. He’d completely stopped moving, staring into space, and the big dragon began urgently coiling about its owner.  _“Oh, not again.”_

“I–is that bad?!?” Tyler hastily pulled his holoband off, feeling his heart rate spike all over again; the last thing he needed was to be stabbed in the wrist with sedative right as he was trying to get away from these two. He got up as well, ready to back away, but Phillip just stood there, while Jordan had dropped to his hands and knees and seemed to be trying to scratch something on a chair leg with a pocket knife, though he too was slowing down. The Drampa was looking more and more worried about the pair, now darting between them and trying to find signs of life.

 _“Sometimes he just seems to… stop. For a little while. I don’t know why, but it seems to make him forget things.”_ It sighed, now curling itself around Tyler’s leg. Jordan finally gave up, and dropped the knife before going face down in the carpet.  _“I don’t mean to be needy, but you don’t seem to be affected by this. Maybe you can help me?”_

Tyler resisted an immediate urge to shake his leg. “Y–yeah. Maybe,” he said, with very little intention whatsoever of following through. It just seemed so entirely unrelated to his own very big problem, with the Heliolisk – or lack of it. “I–I guess I could–”

“You’re not ready to fight me yet.” It seemed to be an effort for him, said through gritted teeth, but Jordan was maintaining the usual smile. “I need to tell you… You’re really not! So I’m not going to. I’m not sure why I even bothered saying that, that’s weird.” Picking up his knife, he stood, and gave Phillip a prod with it. “Just a slip of the brain, right? Because I have a brain, see. Explaining this for the less brainy of us.”

“Save it, Jordan,” Phillip growled. “I dunno why I’m even… I mean, I don’t hang out with  _losers_ who have  _no money._ Hey, what are you doing with him? Get over here.”

 _“Oh, just checking his pockets for those drugs you wanted.”_ The Drampa made a bit of a show of sticking its head in Tyler’s jeans, which he very quickly stepped away from. Had it forgotten what had just happened, too? This whole episode was literally a load of nothing. Why should he care, anyway? No, he definitely wasn’t going on that quest.

 Phillip scratched his head. “Wait, what drugs? You’ve got drugs? Mind if I–”

“God, no!” Tyler blurted. “W–we’re not doing that again!”  

Jordan just smiled. “Oh, of course. I don’t really know why I’m here either, actually!” He shrugged. “Did anyone want to play game to pass the time? I’d love that rematch sometime this eon, you know.”

Tyler put his holoband back on, now he was feeling a little more secure, and glanced down at the scratched chair leg. No, nothing he could read from this distance, and nothing he was about to kneel down for. He wished he could forget this whole thing, honestly. Come to think of it, maybe he would. “I was just thinking about bed, actually.”

The Drampa twisted its neck about and looked at him. Pleading.

He ignored it.

––––––

The trip back to bed was relatively uneventful, besides the girl in the Heliolisk onesie.

She was a short, chubby thing, with round cheeks and stubby arms that kind of suited the outfit. When she saw him, her face lit up so much, he decided not to turn and try a different corridor. “I’m your biggest fan,” she told him.

“Oh, yes! I heard all about it! How you turned into a cool Pokemon.”

Tyler didn’t really believe that himself anymore, so he lifted a brow. “I… did?”

“Yep! An awesome Heliolisk. Can I have your autograph?”

“Uh, thanks?” Her holoband was already in his face, so he supposed he might as well. Pulling a stylus from his own band, Tyler wrote onto the screen of her band. “I didn’t really turn into one, though.”

“No, no! You can’t believe that! I turned into a Vulpix, you know. I had tails and everything! And I got  _probed._ But the Stupid Council doesn’t believe me either. That’s what I call the Student Council, by the way.” She lifted the holoband to her own face, staring at it in wonder. “Coooooool. I’m so your biggest fan.”

“But I… haven’t done anything?”

“Don’t worry! We’re definitely soulmates now! I mean, teammates, but also soulmates! You’re totally going to expose that Student Council for all they’re worth and beat up all the PKU people, I just know it!”

“I  _am?”_ Tyler blinked in utter disbelief. Maybe this was what happened when you didn’t listen to your counsellor? Well, he was definitely going to listen to his counsellor from now on. And he was never, ever, ever going to cause a scene like what he’d done in the cafeteria yesterday. “That’s… nice?”

They stood in silence for a moment, and Tyler wondered what might have happened had Stacy arrived a little earlier, before King arrived, back when he was actually questioning things. He’d felt so much more certain then he might have become a lizard, certain of the feeling he’d had when the electricity had flowed through his body. But now those memories felt far away, foggy, not  _real._ And the reality was him screaming ridiculous things and threatening to strip.

“You’re gonna save the world!” she called as he left. The big Heliolisk hood she was wearing wobbled. “I believe in you!”

 _Good for her_ , because Tyler didn’t feel like believing in that at all. 


End file.
